MR. HARLAN. I desire to ask the Senator if there are courts of law in existence in these Rebel States before whom the parties may appear. MR. SUMNER. I am afraid that courts of justice in those States are not yet in perfect operation. But such as they are, they will be open to every freedman. On this point there can be no question. The next words show what shall be done by these officers to promote the administration of justice:-- “They shall further do what they can as _arbitrators_ to reconcile and settle any differences in which freedmen may be involved, whether among themselves or between themselves and other persons.” Here is the duty of arbitrator and peacemaker, but no power or control. And this duty is applicable to differences of all kinds, where the freedmen are parties. Nothing can be more humane or less tyrannical. This is not all. “In case such differences are carried before any tribunal, civil or military, they shall appear as next friends of the freedmen, so far as to see that the case is fairly stated and heard. And in all such proceedings there shall be no disability or exclusion on account of color.” If not “arbitrators,” then the officers are to be “next friends,” to aid the freedmen in any litigation into which they may be drawn. Very little tyranny here. And this service is to be rendered in any tribunal, “civil or military”; so that, where the civil courts are closed, the freedmen may obtain justice in any military tribunal. But whether in a civil or military tribunal, there is to be no disability or exclusion on account of color. When we consider how this disability and exclusion have been the badge of Slavery and its pretensions, we may find in their positive prohibition a new token of the spirit in which this bill is conceived. Very little tyranny here. MR. GRIMES. But, Mr. President, the case that was put by me was not where there was a controversy between the colored man and some third party, but where the Commissioner attempted to enforce the obligation of duty upon the colored man.… Now I want to know of the Senator if a Commissioner who undertakes to carry out the provisions of this bill may not, under the third section, avail himself of the military authority that may be in the department to enforce obedience,--and if he thinks it would be doing justice to the colored men in the department to leave them to the military control of the Commissioner, of whom we know nothing, and about whom we do not know whether he sympathises with the colored man or not. Is it right to leave these colored men to the military control of this Commissioner in order to enforce the obligation to labor?